


i am a cold wind with a lion's tongue

by longhairandbarefeet



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Angst with a sort of happy ending, F/M, set after the events of season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 11:21:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8011696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longhairandbarefeet/pseuds/longhairandbarefeet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seth shows up unexpectedly on Kate's doorstep, and the past resurfaces. Set two years after the events of season 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i am a cold wind with a lion's tongue

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song "Daylight" by Zander Hawley

He‘s standing outside her front door; it’s a face she hasn’t seen for close to two years. (Unless you count the dreams.) It’s a reunion she’s been expecting, but all the preparation for seeing him goes out the window, and instead she’s left staring.

“Seth Gecko,” She says with her barefoot tapping against the hardwood floor in her foyer. Her body is leaned against the doorframe because her legs are shaking nervously, and she doesn’t want him to notice it. He’s seen her at her worst, and she’s seen him at his, but after he had to save her from her soul being damned for eternity, it doesn’t alleviate the tension building up inside of her. 

“Kate,” He replies coolly. She’s surprised that only her name has escaped his pouty lips. Every sleepless night in Mexico, a bleary eyed Seth would keep her awake with stories of his past, of his childhood, of Richie, and she’d listen eagerly because it was glimpses into a man who’s personality was basically Fort Knox. (She tries to ignore the thought that it was on nights when he was drunk or too fucked up to remember he told her anything.)

“What are you doing here?” 

“Honestly?” Seth says, a small smile forming on his curved lips. “I don’t know. I thought I’d have at least come up with a better answer on the drive, but I guess I’m not as quick on my feet as I used to be.” He’s still smiling, and she hates that a smile begins to cross across her face. It’s just his is so goddamn infectious. 

“Oh?” Kate steps aside so he can come in. She is feeling less like a mermaid with a fresh pair of legs, and more like herself again. “Not as spry in your old age then?” 

“That’s very funny.” Seth says with his forehead scrunched tight as he walks cautiously into her house. She watches him do it, realizing how uncharacteristic it is for him to be so scared. He always acts like he’s owned every room he enters. When he stops, turns around, and looks at her, she realizes she’s still staring at him with the door wide open. “You coming?” 

“Right,” She closes the door, locks it, and proceeds to turn the front porch light off. It’s a routine she’s perfected, and she realizes that she’s locked him inside the house with her when she sees his eyebrows rise curiously at her. They haven’t been alone like this in ages, and now that they are everything remains quiet except the old clock that’s hung up beside of her staircase. 

“You have a nice place.” Seth remarks walking into the main room, and sitting himself on the beige, chaise chair that sits against the big bay window. She breathes out a sigh, and grins. After everything, after Amaru, she was rewarded with, most importantly her life, but she also received a large sum of money from Lord Venganza for taking care of Brasa once and for all. After losing everything, Kate finally had one thing that reminded her of her previous life in Bethel, her dream home. She remembers drawing it when she was in the fifth grade, a pretty, yellow house with a flower garden and a small gate in front. 

“Thanks.” Kate says looking down at her hands, twisting in her lap as she sits on the edge of the fluffy, oversized couch across from him. She picks the book up off the center cushion, and lays it on the coffee table still saving her spot. She was reading before he knocked, and about to fall asleep. Kate wants to roll her eyes at herself for being so boring, but she’s figured she has had enough action in a lifetime when she was wrapped up with the Geckos. “Are you thirsty?”

“I’m okay.” Seth says, laying across the chair and closing his eyes. He’s different, an older version of the lost man she met in the musty motel back in Texas, but he’s also the same, a pretty painting that has yet to crack. She wonders if she’s starting to crack, and he can see it. 

“No water? Sweet tea? Tequila?” Kate replies, a giggle forces itself from her mouth as she presses both of her hands to her lips to contain it. She remembers a night in Mexico, one that didn’t leave a bitter taste in her mouth. He took her to a cantina, and drank entirely too much tequila. He had pressed himself close to her, teaching her how to “properly” salsa with his breathe, and beard hot against her ear. It was the only time that he forgot she was just a little girl. 

“Water would be fine.” Seth says suppressing a laugh, and it makes Kate stop herself from giggling. Yes, he’s the same, always evading responses when it comes to their complicated, and abstract relationship.

 

“Fine. I’ll be right back then.” She clears her throat, stands up, and walks into her little kitchen, adjacent to the living room. She opens her cupboard, reaches inside for a water glass, and lets the cabinet door slam shut behind her. She lays the glass on the countertop, and steps back to grip the opposite counter lip tightly. She just wonders why he came all this way if he was going to make things so difficult for her, for them.

“Are you okay?” 

Her back is turned when she hears him, and it startles her from looking at him. She’s amazed that even his movements are silent like the thief he used to be, or still could be. She doesn’t know anything about him anymore. He could have this entirely different life, a real job or girlfriend, and the thought leaves a jealousy-sized lump in her throat. 

“Yeah,” Kate replies, reaching for the glass, and opening the freezer to put a few ice cubes in. She’s trying hard to maintain her composure, but it only takes the cool puff of air from the freezer to ignite the heat rising inside of her chest. “Why are you here Seth, and so help me if you say you don’t know, I am going—“

“I’ve missed you, Kate.” 

Kate feels everything within her relax and explode at the same time. She softens her expression, and closes the door to the freezer. It’s when she’s pouring water from the faucet into the glass that he clears his throat. She knows he’s waiting on her to say something. She walks towards him, and hands him the glass. It’s as he’s placing it on the kitchen table that she starts to press her hands to his cheeks. He shudders at her cool touch at first, and just as stiff as his body was when she walked towards him, it relaxes as she runs her palms curiously over his face. 

“I’ve missed you to.” Kate responds, taking her palms from his cheeks to reach for his hand, and guide him back to the couch. When they sit down, she doesn’t let go of his hand, instead she squeezes it tighter. 

“After you left, I don’t know,” Seth says closing his eyes, and pulling his hand away from her. “I thought I would give you your space, and let you decide when you’d want to come back,” He pauses, pressing his hands to her face, and running his thumbs along the line of her jaw. “You never came back.” 

“I couldn’t.” Kate says swiftly, her own eyes begin to squeeze tight at the warmth he’s brought her in these last few minutes of touching. She’s tried to find someone, anyone who could match the way it felt when Seth would casually touch her in Mexico, but everything had paled in comparison. “Hurt too much.” 

“I hurt you?” Seth says; borderline disgusted because he had never meant to make her hurt. He had only wanted to heal her, make her better, and bring her back. 

“No,” Kate shakes her head. “Everything hurt. I can’t explain it, I don’t even know if I understand it myself, I did such terrible things.”

“It wasn’t you, Kate, you know that.” Seth says clutching tightly to her small hand, making sure he doesn’t squeeze to tightly for fear of hurting her. She knows what is crossing his mind, that deep down she is still the little church girl from Bethel who puts all of her trust in God, but she’s not. She’s not some breakable doll, not anymore. 

“It was though,” Kate says with her voice beginning to scratch, she knows she’s about to cry and one thing she always hated to do in front of him was cry. “I could feel everything she felt Seth, the pain, the bitterness, the anger,” she pauses for a moment, looking away from him as she whispers the one that keeps her up at night with thoughts of him. “the lust.”

“Kate—“ He begins, and she knows what he’ll say. It already elicits a roll of her eyes. She’s tired of being treated like a child, especially by someone who knows she’s stronger than that. She remembers the day when she finally got her body back, and she was standing in his bedroom a few nights later wearing only his tee shirt. She was waiting for him to take her because she was so fucking tired of not feeling anything. 

“Just, shush,” Kate says trying to forget that he rejected her that night. He wrapped his blanket around her withered shoulders, and kissed her cheek the way a father does when they have to say goodbye to their family before they leave for work in the mornings. She didn’t know what she expected from him that night, what would have happened if he actually did take her virginity she so desperately spent years guarding, wouldn’t she hate him more for it?

“I wanted to,” Seth says with a regretful smile forming on his lips. She’s not sure what he means, if he’s actually inside her mind and reading her thoughts or maybe he carries the same regrets about that night as she does. She never truly gave him the chance to explain it; she just left the following morning and a short note in her wake. She had it propped against the lamp on his nightstand, a messy ‘sorry’ scribbled across it in her handwriting. She’s spent two years trying to feel something besides the overwhelming amount of guilt sitting heavy somewhere inside of her chest. It was a hidden place that kept her up at night, and she could never find it no matter how hard she had tried to.

“Wanted to what?” Kate questions daring to rest her hand on his thigh, and slowly starting to slide it back and forth. She’s no stranger to intimacy anymore, she knows what men like and more importantly what she likes, but having her hand pressed to him leaves her palm feeling like an iron when steam is pressed out of it. Seth keeps his eyes on her, looking at her through heavily lidded eyes. He begins to shift around on the couch, and she knows it’s because he can’t handle how much he’s feeling when she teases him.

“Be with you.” Seth whispers as he leans closer to her. She’s intoxicated, drunk on his smell, his words, and how fast everything is moving. “I want to kiss you Kate Fuller, can you forgive me for that?” He asks, putting his finger under her chin, and tilting it up slowly. She knows he’s waiting on her confirmation, and all it takes is a lick of her bottom lip for him to press his mouth to hers in a greedy kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! It's not my favorite one I've written for them, but I enjoyed writing it nonetheless. I love comments, kudos, and of course suggestions. If you'd like to see anything for them let me know! (I am also on tumblr: youcancalllmequeenjane.tumblr.com)
> 
> Non-beta'd, all mistakes are mine. 
> 
> Also, planning to update Kate the Virgin next!


End file.
